


No Gods, Only Man

by aymiwalker



Category: BioShock, D.Gray-man
Genre: Aquaphobia, Body Modification, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, M/M, Multi, Other, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 22:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5643433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aymiwalker/pseuds/aymiwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kanda and his best friend move into an underwater city right in the midst of a Civil War. In order to flee from his responsibilities, Kanda befriends a stowaway. Meanwhile Alma is getting acquainted to the cultures of this new world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Gods, Only Man

**“No Gods Or Kings. Only Man.”**

**Year of 1954**

**Beneath the Mid-Atlantic Ocean**

**…** …

Despite the other child’s bright smile, Kanda pulls his sleeve away from Alma’s clinging grasp on his sleeve. They were regretfully immune to the harsh treatment, and Alma turned back to continue to rant some more crap to Kanda’s parents about the ‘ _unfathomable beauty_ ’ of the city or whatever. He seized the moment to tune himself out and stare out towards the small looking window of their tiny bathysphere. Many moments ago they had left the surface and since been surrounded in this murky blue darkness, sinking still. He wondered when, if ever, they’d reach this godforsaken city, or if maybe their ship’s coordinates were askew and were forever lost to wander beneath the Atlantic Ocean. He decided he’d like that idea, if only his roommates were a little less infuriating.

Besides himself, the only other occupants in this ship were his parents and Alma. Kanda’s folks were sitting nobly side by side, his father silent and his mother nodding enthusiastically to Alma. Despite how flamboyant they were, running about their tiny ship, Kanda’s mother continued to smile. Anything to keep that child in their high spirits.

Fucking leeches.

“-かっこい, Karma-kun, you know quite a lot about Rapture don’t you?” Kanda’s mother gasped in admiration.

Alma’s cheeks puffed and grew pink. They had too much pride in that damn city. “Yes! My father helped build it!”

“Build? But I thought your father was in charge of security?”

Alma shook their head, “He’s a contractor too! And he told me a lot about Rapture. He even let me meet Mr. Ryan!”

That caught their attention. He could see their eyes spark at every given opportunity, even within his silent father, whenever Alma revealed something important or business related to them. They had been keen to keep close to the Karma child, ever since they had discovered they had grown fond of their very own Yu Kanda.

He hated them for it.

Despite how he acted around his parents, Kanda was very close to Alma, and they’ve been best friends for as long as he’d known. And it made his blood boil to think that his parents were taking advantage of their relationship just to get closer to the Karma family. But he supposed in a way it this was also his punishment.

He contributed nothing, and refuses to contribute, towards their family’s name. If he was not going to burden himself with their own company, they would see to it that he’d at least help it grow before disowning him completely.

And Alma was none the wisest.

“Oi. When are we gonna land?”

Alma plopped himself next to Kanda. “Don’t worry, Yu. We’re almost there.”

As if on cue, the subs torches flickered on, illuminating a seaweed forest they were currently diving over. Not a moment later a screen cut off the view and a projector began to roll a film. Alma jumped up and down in their seat besides Kanda and moved once again to grab his sleeve, to which this time he let them.

The film revealed a man whose face was half-shaded by his top hat, a cigar in his mouth and gruff beard with a voice to match. The man’s appearance screamed head-honcho, and by the way Alma smiled, Kanda guessed they knew him too.

“It’s Andrew-“

“-Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.'”

Alma scurries from where they were seated to the bathysphere’s door, the largest window in the craft. They pulled the disgruntled Kanda along with them to peer outside.

“I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture,”

As if on cue, their bathysphere clears over the last of the greenery, dipping over a cliff and into a luminescent fog below. It’s the city, parked elegantly in the dark ocean cavern. As they draw closer, the buildings seem to grow, so much so that Kanda had to lean back to pear up at the peaks of them. Alma has a grip of his entire arm now. He does not know what expression they hold, but he can feel their gaze glued to his face.

“-a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.”

Kanda found himself at a loss for words. He had been reluctant to show any interest in their move down into the depths of the ocean, yet he still tried to imagine just what an underwater city would actually look like. He half expected it to be bubbled in a glass sphere, but he never expected it to look like an actual… city.

Skyscrapers were a scene he was quite familiar with, and to see them settled here on the ocean floor was a bit unsettling. The bathysphere was approaching what he guessed would be their docking bay. Their craft jerked as it came into contact with the metal dock. As the ship continued down it’s designated course, lights illuminated above them, a welcoming sign that read, “All good things of this earth…”

Alma’s grip felt entrapping. He was sure the gesture was meant to comfort, to welcome him into a world that Alma had so adored, and yet it felt almost suffocating. Holding him there, forcing him to look upon his own personal fish tank from hell.

“…flow into the City”, Alma finished into his ear, like someone would mouth the lines to their favorite play.

He swallowed dryly, hoping his discomfort did not come off as obvious as it felt. Kanda knew why the city made him uncomfortable. He looked up once more at the massive buildings that surrounded them, and past their peaks to the black abyss above. Sunlight could no longer reach to where they were. The city, as bright and lively as it was, was being drowned in the darkness, and Kanda had been dragged here to drown with it.

When the bathysphere finally entered the hull of a building, cutting off his view of the outside, he was able to bring his thoughts back into himself. The bathysphere jerked once more as the dock’s mechanics lifted the ship into a shaft, and Kanda turned back towards his parents to grab his things. The sooner they were able to leave this sub and settle into their new place, the sooner he would be able ditch them and forget about his damned position. As much as he could anyway, being fathoms below the surface and with no escape.

Alma followed him, helping to carry what little Kanda brought along. Most of what his family owned was moved in advance to their arrival, and it tempted him to just leave what he had in favor of putting as much distance from them as possible. He wouldn’t though, as that would mean leaving Alma behind with his parents who would surely tell them promises he would be forced to keep. He couldn’t drag Alma along either, as the other wouldn’t let him hear the end of it. Alma had a different respect for adults that he just couldn’t quite understand.

So when the bathysphere finally broke the surface, and the door opened to greet them with music and velvet carpets, he decided to resign himself to his fate at the moment, and to take in whatever this utopia had in store for Rapture’s latest permanent residents.

 

* * *

 

 **A/N:[mood music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCfwJ6C1eN8&feature=youtu.be&t=112)**  

Minor changes to the prologue were made in order to comply with the plot further on.

**Author's Note:**

> Currently a prologue to a concept story I've been meaning to write for years. Bioshock and D.Gray-man are two of my favorite things, and I hope despite my lack of writing skills that I am able to do them justice.


End file.
